PAKISTAN Flashcards

1
Q

Physical Causes

A

Record Monsoon Rainfall - KPK - 5 days exceptional precipitation. (60 hours of continuous rainfall, which exceeded usual total for monsoon season by 30%)

High antecedent rainfall - raised water table and reduced field capacity so reduced infiltration and more overland flow.

Jet stream behaviour - A rare meteorological pattern in the summer of 2010 allowed storms to spread into Pakistan, combining with the monsoon to produce record rainfall.

Gradient - Steep Swat Valley meant that water reached the channel quicker, leading to a steeper rising limb.

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2
Q

Human Causes

A

Densely Populated - Most densely populated rural region in the country alongside the River Indus. A highly destructive ‘tsunami-like’ wave of water tore through the Indus, creating floods that travelled southwards to affect the entire river course in the centre of Pakistan. This represents the most densely populated part of Pakistan: Punjab, which is known as the ‘bread basket’ of Pakistan.

Deforestation - The Taliban deforested the Swat Valley in 2009, which led to greater overland flow and allowed for the precipitation to reach the river more quickly.

Climate Change - warmer air has greater capacity to hold moist air.

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3
Q

Economic Impacts

A

A dam that irrigated nearly 200,000 acres of farmland was destroyed by the flood waters and extensive damage to irrigation systems in the Punjab and Sindh provinces

$1 billion estimated cost of the loss of public buildings

Cotton that was lost significantly affected the textile industry which accounts for 60% of the GDP

Cost of agriculture was put at £1.5 billion

Food shortages lead to doubling or tripling of grain prices

Monthly average incomes dropped 10,000 rupees to less than 5,000 rupees.

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4
Q

Social Impacts

A

1600 deaths

90% of deaths occurred in KPK valley sweeping people away

Number of people affected more than combines numbers of 2004 Tsunami, Haiti Earthquake and 2005 Pakistan earthquake

14 million affected - 6 million were children and 3 million were women of child-bearing age

11,000 villages and over 1.2 million houses were damaged or destroyed

87% of population displaced by floods

6million were thought to be at risk from starvation

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5
Q

Environmental Impacts

A

1/5 of Pakistan (38,600km2) submerged by the floods, leading to the destruction of natural environment.

7 million hectares of most fertile land was obliterated

High discharge led to erosion of steep slopes. This resulted in increased sediment and thus will lessen the future channel capacity

Impact on wildlife: washed away vital wetland breeding grounds for birds and animals

62,000 litres of petrol and 44,000 litres of diesel were mixed with flood water from broken pumps.

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6
Q

Management: Forecasting & Warning

A

Due to this flooding event taking place on such a large scale, Pakistan was less equipped to dealing with floods. Although it was known that 4-10 cubic km of water would pass through the Taunsa, Guddu and Sukkur Dams in the KPK Valley - there was poor anticipation of the scale of the flood and no measures were taken to mitigate the effects further downstream.

Pakistan is also limited in its prediction and forecasting - it does not cover the whole of the Indus river basin - Swat Valley did not receive any warnings in 2010, people caught unawares which accounts for the high loss of life and property in this area. The Indus is a transboundary river with part of its catchment in neighbouring countries. Cooperation with these is limited so that key information regarding precipitation input and river discharge from the upper catchment is insufficient and delayed.

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7
Q

Management: Hard Engineering

A

Spent $1.2 billion on attempting to mitigate against the flooding over the River Indus

Levees - They increase the capacity of the channel to reduce the risk of discharge exceeding bankfull and overtopping. There are 6,000 km of levees in Pakistan, which cover the critical stretches of the river and these are the main flood defence infrastructure.

However, the height of these levees remains arbitrarily at 1.8m which is higher than the previous flood levels in the basin.

In Pakistan, 1,410 spurs (walls constructed to divert flow and flooding away from towns, roads etc) have been built since 1960.

Dams and Reservoirs - In Pakistan, the Tarbela and Mangla holding reservoirs contribute to the country’s ability to store 30 days of mean annual discharge, but sedimentation has reduced the capacity of the reservoir store.

However, this is only mainly successful in small river basins and not only that, but this measure controls flows in the upper catchment, so therefore no measures were taken to mitigate the effects of this floodwater downstream of the dams. (The worst affected areas downstream were the Punjab and Sindh provinces; in Sindh, 1 million homes were affected and of these, 66% were completely destroyed).

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8
Q

Management: Soft Engineering

A

OTHER EXAMPLES:

Flood Abatement: Flood Abatement Scheme in River Derwin in Pickering, Yorkshire saw its discharge fall by 15-20% after a reservoir was implemented and 40,000 trees were planted.

River Restoration: Kimissee River, Florida restored to its natural state after hard engineering previously.

Land-use Zoning: Whole CBD was relocated in Soldier’s Grove on the Kickapoo River in SW Wisconsin in the USA. In the USA, FEMA provide flood insurance rate maps.
H/E, rare due to cost although many settlements moved following the 1993 Mississippi Floods.

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